The Italian Defense General Staff and SDA Bocconi School of Management signed a multiyear framework cooperation agreement on October 7, 2026, to promote joint research, education, and analysis in the fields of security, defense, and national resilience. The agreement responds to the growing need to understand and anticipate the country's strategic vulnerabilities, translating risk assessments and analyses of geopolitical and economic scenarios into knowledge and tools that support planning and decision-making processes. At the heart of the collaboration is SHIELD (Strategic Hub for Integrated Education on Leadership & Defense), SDA Bocconi's hub dedicated to the interconnections between defense, the economy, industry, and security.

The ceremony held after the agreement was signed, held in Rome, was attended by the Deputy Chief of the Defense Staff, Air Squadron General Luigi Del Bene, representing the Chief of the Defense Staff, General Luciano Portolano, and the Dean of SDA Bocconi School of Management, Stefano Caselli.

SHIELD is the SDA Bocconi's research and education hub, directed by Carlo Altomonte, that brings together expertise in economics, finance, industry, technology, and geopolitics to address emerging security and defense challenges. Through a multidisciplinary research model, SHIELD fosters dialogue among institutions, academia, industry, and financial institutions, with the aim of developing scientific analyses and practical tools capable of anticipating risks and assessing the economic implications of strategic decisions.

The hub's research activities, coordinated by Walter Rauti, are grounded in an integrated perspective on economic and national security. Industrial decisions, access to technologies and raw materials, supply chain organization, and the allocation of financial resources directly affect a country's ability to prevent and respond to crises. At the same time, geopolitical instability, hybrid threats, and infrastructure vulnerabilities can have significant consequences for competitiveness, business continuity, and the resilience of the economic system.

The agreement will make it possible to advance this multidisciplinary approach through research and education programs focused on some of Italy's key strategic priorities. These include the security of defense supply chains, the protection of critical infrastructure and submarine cables, the resilience of strategic maritime routes, energy, food, and financial security, as well as the analysis of hybrid threats and their economic impacts.

Particular attention will be devoted to cognitive security and the implications of artificial intelligence, recognizing that disinformation campaigns, information manipulation, data breaches, and the use of unreliable technological systems can undermine the quality of decision-making processes and create new forms of strategic vulnerability.

The collaboration comes at a time when national security increasingly depends on the interplay between military capabilities, economic strength, technological autonomy, and industrial resilience. From this perspective, academic research can help strengthen institutions' ability to understand complex phenomena, identify interdependencies among different risks, and assess potential courses of action using scientific methodologies.

For SDA Bocconi and SHIELD, the agreement marks a significant step toward consolidating a model of structured collaboration between academic research and defense institutions. The shared objective is to contribute to the development of an increasingly integrated understanding of the security environment, combining scientific rigor, foresight, and operational relevance to strengthen the country's resilience and security.

SDA Bocconi School of Management